


O

by nokomisfics



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Phan, Alternate Reality, Angst, BBC Radio 1, Coffee Shops, Flashbacks, Kissing, Lots of Tea, M/M, Reunions, Sexting, Skype, Then and Now, i'll fight you on this, long distance, which is markedly different from AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5991694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokomisfics/pseuds/nokomisfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dan and phil stopped talking in 2009. by a twist of fate, five years later, they meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O

**Author's Note:**

> actual message i sent to kate regarding the length of this fic: "idk it can't be longer than 7k" ,,, look how far we've come 
> 
> so i had the idea in my mind for a while now and thought i'd get it all out before i properly stop writing for this fandom. thanks to kate for being the best beta as always and eradicating any potentially embarrassing spelling errors, and also to hayley (hwll) for giving this a look through :)) more thanks to sing for listening to me yell about how awesome this fic is going to be. 
> 
> enjoy! x

**_2014_ **

 

When it happens, Dan’s running late and the Starbucks is crowded as fuck all. Grimmy from Radio One is going to be _pissed_ if he arrives a half hour late for their meeting with a coffee cup in hand. Fuck the coffee, he’d rather still have a job offer by the end of the day. He’s halfway out the door when someone’s grabbing his elbow and pulling him back and saying, in a voice so familiar it immediately gives him butterflies, “Dan?”

Dan turns. Stares. “Jesus Christ.”

“No,” the man says, smiles, blue eyes twinkling. “Still Phil.”

“Fucking Christ,” Dan swears again. Someone jostles him and he steps away from the door. The Starbucks is still packed and he’s definitely going to be late for his meeting and he hasn’t even had a shower yet. He definitely smells a bit like sleep and mouthwash. Phil looks _great_. None of this is _fair_.

“D’you kiss your mum with that mouth?” Phil wants to know. Phil, who apparently is in the mood to joke around. Phil, who’s standing nice and tall in his posh winter coat and boots and - is that snow in his hair? Fucking hell. It’s way too early in the day for Dan to meet his best friend in person for the very first time.

 _Ex_ best friend.

“Not if she won’t let me,” Dan says. He drags in a deep breath and is about to say something - _what the fuck are you doing here_ , or _why didn’t you text me when you knew I was in London_ , or _are you free this evening, say around six?_ but he’s cut off (perhaps fortunately) by Phil asking, “Are you heading somewhere?”

All at once he remembers Grimmy, and his thing with Radio 1 that may as well be fucked up if he’s late for today’s meeting. “Shit, fuck,” he says again. “I’m sorry, I’ve really got to - ”

“It’s okay,” Phil says. This is still unreal; Dan can’t stop _staring_. He’s got the same blue eyes - sharper now, in real life - and his face is the same. The fringe has receded, doesn’t go all the way down the side of his face now. (Dan’s begun wearing his up in a quiff.) His voice is nice and low and still pleasing, like it’s always been. He’s tall, but Dan’s taller. This is _unreal_.

Phil’s reaching out now, making a vague sort of gesture with his hands. Still awkward, then. “I’ll give you my number?” he’s saying, a little hesitantly. “You can call me, or something. If you, um. Want.”

Dan’s handing over his phone before he can even process it, caught up on the way Phil says _um_ \- his mouth goes all bloated like a blowfish and it sounds more like _ohm_ , and he draws it out so it sounds at least three syllables long. Dan hasn’t had a sip of coffee but he already feels so alive. It’s been the strangest fucking day and it’s literally _just_ begun. 

The world spins to a complete stop when Phil gives him back his phone and their fingers brush. What is he, _twelve_? “It’s saved under Phil,” he says, awkward as anything. “I’ll see you, then? Don’t be a stranger, alright?”

 _He’s_ one to talk, thinks Dan savagely. “I’ll call,” he says, not completely believing his words. There’s another moment where Phil seems to be going in for a hug and Dan just wants to _leave_ , so he steps away and makes an aborted sort of wave with his hand, and he’s out and on the street half-running to the BBC before he can break down in the middle of a crowded Starbucks. 

When he stumbles into the meeting room three minutes past eleven, Grimmy regards him with appraising eyes (his own quiff still standing three feet tall, some things never change) and says, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Dan doesn’t correct him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2009_ **

 

When he’d finally plucked up the nerve to bring it up, it had been three o’clock in the morning for the both of them, and the Skype call had been running for almost five hours now. Dan had been slumped on his bed, laptop lying beside him, webcam turned on even though he’d long since stopped looking at the screen. If he were to, though, he’d see Phil doing the same. Most of their calls ended up this way these days - with the two of them on their backs, laptops pushed to the side, earphones lying tangled against their chests. It’s always easier to say honest things when no one’s looking.

“Secret for secret,” Dan had said, when opportunity presented itself in the form of a lull in the conversation.

They had been talking about videos, and all the ones Dan had saved in a folder titled _never ever ever_. Phil had been trying to talk him into uploading one. _You’ll do great_ , Phil had said, forever the optimistic. _They’ll eat you up, they’ll love you so much_. Dan hadn’t been sure, though. He still isn’t sure, sometimes.

Phil had breathed heavily, falling silent. “Secret for secret,” he’d echoed, after a while.

“Go on,” Dan had said. Cowardly like he’s always been. “You first.”

“Okay.” Phil’s voice had perked. “Here’s one I didn’t tell anyone because it’s too embarrassing, like. Remember how I told you my new year’s resolution was to work out thrice a week?”

“Mmhmm.” Dan had begun noticing Phil’s arms after that, when he moved his hands to illustrate the stories he told in a new video. They didn’t look like they belonged to someone who went to the gym that often, but they were nice. Shapely. Dan found himself thinking once about what it might feel like to lick along his elbow, and since then he’d only allowed himself to look at the parts of Phil above his neck.

“That was a bit of a lie.” Dan heard Phil laugh, and he found himself smiling, even though he didn’t know the joke just yet. “My real resolution was, like, I’d promised I’d go vegetarian, and gave up after seven hours. T’was embarrassing so I never told anyone.” Phil was properly laughing now, his breath hiccuping in short breaths. Dan had to fight not to be endeared. “That’s my secret.”

“You’re a fool,” Dan had said, in lieu of something more honest, more desperate.

“Your turn.”

Dan remembers humming, hawing, like he hadn’t been thinking about this for weeks. _Months_. Since the very first skype call, really, when they’d both sat upright and leaned into the screen too keenly, like if they looked away for the slightest, the other might disappear.

“Do you think a bit about, like, the future, sometimes?” he’d heard himself say eventually.

“The future in general or the future like college? Or YouTube?” Phil had fallen silent ƒor the longest moment, and then he’d added, “Or the future, like, us?”

They’d only been talking for seven months now, is what Dan had wanted to remind him. He’d been reminding himself the same thing, too, it only seemed fair. _There isn’t an ‘us’._ “Yeah,” he’d said. “That one. The last one.”

“Kind of,” Phil had admitted, sounding weirdly guilty. “S’that what’s gotten you all broody as of late?”

Dan had been trying not to let it show; he hadn’t realised Phil might have noticed anyway. “Not really,” he’d lied. “Just, like, thinking. You know? S’what I do best.”

“Sure, Dan,” Phil had said. He’s sounded amused.

Dan had laid there, fingers tangling nervously in the cords of his earphones, heart pounding in his ears so loud he was afraid he wouldn’t hear Phil run out of patience and ask him to just spill his secret, already. But Phil had remained quiet, and Dan had remained panicky.

“You’re my best friend,” he’d said.

“I know, Dan.” Patient, kind. Sweet as ever. “You’re mine, too.”

“No, like.” Dan can remember that feeling even now, the desperation clawing through his chest, like he was scrambling for footing on a cliff, six short seconds from plummeting into an infinite ravine. The clock ticked. _Five_. “You’re my _best_ friend, right? Not one of my best. Y’know?”

 _Four_.

“Yeah,” Phil had said, softly.

“And, like, sometimes I think about, when we will meet? If we meet.” _Three_. “What it would be like.”

“Me too, Dan.” He’d sounded honest, like he really meant it. Like he really sat in his flat in Manchester, Amazing Phil from YouTube with all of his fans and his roommate and his nice adult life, and thought about meeting Dan and going grocery shopping with him, like Dan imagined them doing, sometimes. _No_ , he’d thought, irrationally. _Not you too._

“And sometimes it, kind of. Kind of hurts?” This was the real bit. The main bit. He just needed to get it all out quickly, and not get too weepy or anything else embarrassing. Phil would understand. He’s always been a nice guy. “Hurts because I, uh. Don’t see it happening. And I can’t. Can’t keep imagining, because I want it so bad.” _Two._ “Want you so bad.”

Phil had stayed quiet at that. Dan had pulled in one heavy breath, and then another, and then one more for good luck. There wasn’t much else to say; he’d already dug a hole in his chest, wrenched his heart out and stitched it onto his sleeve, blood and muscle and all. Another breath. For the nerves.

_One._

“I don’t think I can be your friend anymore.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2014_ **

 

So, he gets the Radio 1 gig. He wasn’t expecting otherwise, but he _had_ been a bit nervous. The whole crew is onboard, though - Grimmy and Pixie, and this girl everyone called LMC, and Ben Winston even, the guy who interviews fucking One Direction. But isn’t Grimmy best friends with one of the One Direction lads? Harry Styles. _God_. Dan can’t believe he’s part of that crowd now.

Well. Not _part of_. He’s technically an intern, although he’s set to do an hour every Saturday afternoon if there aren’t any guests. Just usual things, playing music and having a bant with Grimmy or whoever else is on. It still feels like something, though. The amount they’re paying him for it is certainly _something_.

Amy comes home in the evening, balancing a cupcake on top of her laptop case and holding three of her textbooks in the other. “Quick quick quick,” she says when Dan opens the door, and he steps aside to let her run in and drop her things - save for the cupcake - on the dinner table. “You got it, didn’t you,” she says as he shuts the door. All he’s got to do is shrug and smile, and then she’s hugging him and jumping up and down and squealing. The cupcake gets a bit squashed through it all.

They order in pizza for dinner, something they’ve been trying not to make a habit of because they’re in London now and the pizza here is fucking expensive. But, Amy argues, they’re celebrating Dan’s new job. She even teases that he can pay for it out of the bomb he’s going to get transferred to his bank account every month. He laughs at the joke, but privately thinks it true. Then immediately hates himself for it.

“Cheese and pepperoni?” she asks when she’s on the phone with the pizza place. She’s eaten half the cupcake and left the other half by her books for Dan. He picks it up and gives it a sniff, nodding absently at her. “And a capsicum double cheese,” she adds into the phone.

Dan wrinkles his nose at her, until he remembers it’s Friday and Amy’s vegetarian today. Sometimes it boggles his mind how he’s only known her two years at most, and not very closely until much recently, but they’re already living together. It had felt inevitable, though, when Dan had announced he was dropping out of law to do YouTube full time in London, and Amy had said she’d come with. They were mates in uni but nothing outside of that, but he’d been the only one she’d told about applying to King’s, and then getting in. They couldn’t find a flat to rent at a reasonable rate for one person, so the decision to share came naturally. He hasn’t quite gotten around to regretting it yet.

They put the telly on after dinner, a tiny box on a low-set table that had come with the flat. Sort of. The landlady had waved a hand at the little thing and said, “You can use that, whatever.” But they’d gone with the low-set aesthetic, getting in thick rugs and throw pillows instead of couches to sit on. It always made Dan feel like a try-hard hipster, but Amy liked it, and it was nice for his back or something.

They sit on the throw pillows and Amy tells him about her day, about the boy in her morning lecture that’s been giving her a side-eye for weeks now. She’s been staying at the library late every day, trying to catch up on the months she missed when they were in Manchester. But, like always, her eyes go a little glazy when she talks about her professors and the things she’s learning. Amy has wanted to study law since she was little, while it was a last-minute decision Dan had made after he’d gotten his A Levels, and broken up with his girlfriend for three years, and wanted to go as far away from home as possible. Even if that far away was Manchester, where Phil used to live. It had been the only place that would take him in with his shit A Levels, and he’d met Amy, so it hadn’t been too bad in the end.

“What about you, popstar?” Amy asks, stretching out on the rug to poke Dan with his toe. He’s been mucking on his phone for a bit, nodding at Amy’s stories in the right places. She knows him well enough to know he isn’t being rude, just can’t concentrate on one thing long enough to not do something on the side. The sudden thought of Phil feels jarring now, sitting with Amy in their flat in the dim lights and the soft sounds of the telly in the background. _Bake Off_ is playing. Dan stares at it.

“Ran into Phil at the coffee shop,” he says casually. He doesn’t tell her it was at a Starbucks because she’s always giving him shit for patronising big American companies, something about consumerism and supporting the ‘system’. If she starts now she won’t shut up about it and he won’t have gotten in another word about Phil at all.

Although that alternative feels desirable now, when Amy goes completely silent on the other end of the rug, and then says very quietly, “Phil.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, still trying to sound casual. He shrugs, hoping to all the gods that it doesn’t look like he’s twitching. It probably does. “He’s in London, you know? He’s been staying here for a while.”

He keeps his phone away and taps his knees. Amy’s looking at him a little calculatively, like she’s trying to piece together his fractures thoughts. She tends to do that sometimes, tries to make sense of Dan when he can’t make sense of himself. “On your way to the BBC?” she asks, slowly.

“Yeah,” Dan says again. He doesn’t know what else to add. _He gave me his number_ feels too flat. _He told me to keep in touch_.

 _I met my best friend today for the first time, and it was nothing like I thought it would be_.

And then: _Ex_ best friend.

He feels choked up, too hot and too cold and not comfortable enough. He stretches out on the rug, toes reaching Amy’s shoulder, so they’re lying side by side but in opposite directions. It’s easier like this, when he hasn’t got to look at her. Makes it easier to be honest.

“What’d he say?” Amy asks. She sounds far away.

“Hi,” Dan says, stupidly. “I was in a bit of a rush, though, because I was late for my meeting with Grimmy, so I just. You know.”

“Bolted?”

“No, he put his number in my phone and told me to keep in touch.” The words feel alien, dropping from his mouth as he looks up at the ceiling of their small, cosy flat. Amy’s hung fairy lights from the curtains, and when he blinks he can see them behind his eyelids. Had Phil really said that, just this morning, when they’d met for the very first time, and completely by accident? Surely not. Dan’s half convinced if he were to check his phone now, he wouldn’t find Phil’s number in it. It was all a dream, a mad hallucination.

“Okay,” Amy says, still slow and cautious like she’s walking a field of landmines. “So have you called him, then?”

“No.” Dan shuts his eyes tight. The fairy lights flicked under his eyelids. He wills them away. “I don’t think I want to.”

“Oh, Dan.” She sighs, sounding quite sad. Dan wants to take it all back. She doesn’t know very much about Phil except the bits Dan had mentioned the first day they’d met, about him doing YouTube because he’d had a mate who did YouTube. He had to try very hard not to mention Phil around his uni friends. He didn’t want to carry that sort of baggage around with him and dump it on every new person he met. It worked well for the most part.

Amy’s always been a little perceptive, though. She’s always known a tad more than Dan’s allowed himself to tell her. And, like, it’s not like they’ve deleted anything. If she did just a bit of digging she’d find the old tweets from 2009, the clingy photobooth comments, the screenshots from Skype. The fans have documented everything, although they’ve moved on for the most part. They’ve all written Dan and Phil off as a failed romance, a tragic YouTube story. Sometimes Dan wants to speak out, tell them it hadn’t even been a romance. He’d just had a best friend one day, and he didn’t the next. But it’s never been so simple.

“Let’s put on _Friends_ ,” he says after a bit, sitting up and going to put the disk into the player under the telly. Amy watches him do it, and moves the throw pillows around so they can lie down with their heads propped up to watch the show. Amy doesn’t ask him about Phil further, although she does give him a lingering hug before going to bed. She’s never done that before.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2009_ **

 

“This is so weird,” Dan giggles, when Phil blurs into view on screen. He immediately claps a hand over his mouth and tells himself to shut up.

“Stop that,” Phil says, which happens to be the first two words he ever says to Dan with his actual voice. Dan tries not to memorise the moment. “I want to see you smile.”

Dan takes his hand away from his mouth to tell Phil off for being cheesy, but his belly floods with butterflies that he can’t get rid of. He’d told himself for the longest time that he wouldn’t start to crush on Phil. He doesn’t know if he’s made good on the promise anymore.

There’s also the lingering awe that surrounds him, from having Amazing Phil from YouTube on skype. It screws with his head, but it feels great. He feels great. Like he could eat the sun.

They only talk for two hours that first day, because it’s still a bit awkward even though the conversation comes easy, like Dan had been hoping it would. He leans away from the computer at midnight and acts like his mum’s telling him to sleep, and immediately feels stupid for it because it makes him sound like a kid. “It’s okay,” Phil tells him, “I’ve got to make dinner for me and Charlie too, it’s fine.” Which somehow makes it worse, because Phil’s an adult now and can eat his dinner at midnight if he wants to. Dan still stays with his parents. He hasn’t even given his A Levels yet.

“Okay,” Dan says, heart still beating wildly in his chest. It feels like it hasn’t calmed down for the last two hours. “I’ll - text you tomorrow, yeah?” He hopes he doesn’t sound as nervous as he does in his head, but he evidently does, because Phil laughs a little kindly.

“Of course,” he says. “Goodnight, Dan.”

Dan’s heart misses several beats. Phil’s rarely used his name in conversation, and him using it now feels like it must mean something. “This was nice,” Dan blurts, stumbling over his words. “Wasn’t it? I’m glad we did this.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Phil tells him. It sounds a bit like a promise. Dan usually doesn’t like those, but now, he blushes.

“Goodnight, Phil,” he says, before ringing off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2014_ **

 

He wakes up Saturday morning with a text on his phone from Phil. He sits up, rubs sleepily at his eyes and tells his heart to calm the fuck down as he thumbs open the message. It reads: _Hi! Phil here. you probably already know about this, but Zoe sugg’s having a mixer at her place tonight. Hope I see you there, I’d love to catch up. If not, ring my sometime? Dont be a stranger again please. x Phil_

The words stumble over each other in his vision, reeking of Phil. Dan drags himself to the kitchen to put a kettle on the boil. Amy’s sat at the dining table, papers spread out in front of her, laptop playing piano music. “Morning,” she says, biting into a toast.

Dan stares at her. Rubs his eyes again. “Time s’it?”

“Half past seven,” she says. Then, after gauging Dan’s face, she justifies, “I’ve only just started.”

They’d both gone to bed at ten last night, but it’s still an ungodly hour to be awake. Dan makes them two cups of rosemary and brings them to Amy with a tin of cream biscuits. “Thanks,” she mumbles, highlighting a whole chunk of text in her notes with bright pink. Dan sits opposite from her and watches her work for a while; she’s scarily organised, notes colour coded and spilling almost neatly out of a folder with CL101 written on it in bold black biro. Dan had taken Criminal Law for two years back in Manchester before he’d dropped out. It had been his favourite lecture.

“So Phil texted me,” he says when Amy leans away from her notes to sip at the still warm tea.

Her busy eyes flicker up to him. “Oh?” She doesn’t sound half as groggy as someone who’s just woken up should sound.

“Yeah.” Dan swallows a sip of his own tea. He’s always been a Yorkshire man himself, but the Rosemary in London is better than the one they used to get in Manch. He’s gotten a bit addicted. “He said to go to Zoe’s mixer tonight.”

“Zoe Sugg?” Amy shifts forward, shuffling her notes back into the file. “Hadn’t you meant to go, anyway?”

He had. Zoe had called him the day he’d moved to London, sounding breathlessly excited that they lived in the same city now. Dan had been surprised because they’d never actually talked before, just brief interactions on Twitter and a birthday greeting, once. He’d marked the date of the mixer on the new calendar Amy had hung on the new fridge. It had felt, weirdly, like he’d made it.

“Maybe I won’t go,” he says now, hollowly.

“Didn’t you say it’d be good for you to go meet with all the other creators?” Amy points out sensibly. She isn’t very familiar with the new British crowd besides Dan and Phil. She also insists on calling them content creators, instead of YouTubers like everyone else. And the only one of them she actively keeps up with, besides Dan, is Charlie. (Charlie from Charlieissocoollike. Not Phil’s ex boyfriend, Charlie.) Sometimes he feels like he’s still staying with his mum.

He grins at her a little fondly. “I did say that.”

“So what’s the deal, then?” she asks, settling into her chair now that her notes are stowed away, safe from tea spills and biscuit crumbs. “Are you going to ignore him, or?”

“Not ignore him,” says Dan immediately. Even he knows that’s exactly what he wants to do.

“You’re not a coward,” Amy agrees, sounding pleased. “You never did tell me what went down between the two of you.”

“We were friends,” Dan says. He looks down at his cup of tea and thinks, _that’s not the whole truth, is it?_ But it’s the only variable bit. Everything else may have only just happened in his head. There’s no way to check, now. “And then, like, we drifted apart.” Another lie. “Well, kind of.”

“Did he have a boyfriend, then?”

Dan shakes his head. “He’d broken up with Charlie before we began speaking.”

“But they still lived together?”

“I guess.” He didn’t understand that part back then. Now he knows about flat rates and contracts. If he and Amy were to start dating and then break up, no matter how much it’d hurt he’d still ask her to stay till he found someone else to move in with him. The rent is fucking expensive when it’s not divided between the two of them.

He blanches at the thought of dating Amy. She brings him back with a, “So you loved him, a little bit?”

“We were best friends,” Dan says, weakly.

“And, what, he pushed you away?” Her questions don’t prick like he expects them to. She doesn’t sound demanding, or rude. She sounds curious. She just wants to _know_.

“Not quite.” Dan licks his lips. Drains the last of his tea. “I was responsible for that bit.”

Amy’s quiet for so long Dan’s half afraid she’s fallen asleep. He munches on a biscuit, watching her think it over. “So,” she starts, and then stops again.

“I was dumb, alright?” He blows out a breath. “We’d talked about, like, staying together. About me moving to Manchester and studying there? And it felt like too much at the time. Not that I didn’t want it, I’d wanted it all, Christ. I used to have daydreams of us going out and doing the fucking grocery shopping together.” He laughs, but it sounds faint. What kind of eighteen year old boy thinks of that? “But we never talked about the other parts, about how much I liked him, and how he didn’t seem like he liked me back. Or even knew I thought of him that way. It was like. Like I was going to give everything, and he was just going to take.”

There’s a faint, familiar pang in his heart as he says it. He’d thought it, that exact phrase, so many times in the last five years. He’d never said it out loud. He hadn’t meant to sound so heartbroken, but. But that’s exactly what he sounds like.

“So you never met?” Amy probes, gently.

“I said we couldn’t be friends anymore,” Dan mumbles. He can’t look at her, his vision blurry with unshed tears. He feels fucking pathetic, the most he’s felt in horribly long. “I said we should stop talking, and he said okay, if that’s what I wanted. And I told him it was.”

“Oh, Dan,” Amy says quietly, just like she had last night. She gets up and comes around to him, hugging him into her middle. He buries his head in her soft belly and tells himself he isn’t going to cry.

He does, anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2009_ **

 

“Tell me a secret?”

“Only if you tell me one in return.”

“Secret for secret? What are we, seven?”

A laugh. “Exactly.”

“Fine.”

“I want to go on the Manchester Eye with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I haven’t gone yet, but I’ve been living here for ages, and I really want to? When we meet, I think we should do that. And then there’s a cafe with the nicest terrace that you can watch the sunset from. We should go there, too.”

“You think about that?”

“Quite a bit. It gets me through the difficult days.”

There’s no laughing now.

“Your turn. Go on, see if you can trump me on the mushiness scale.”

“I’ve never had a best friend.” The words fall out like a prayer, a whisper. A secret. “I think maybe I’ve got one now.”

“Dan.”

“You can’t not know, I mean, you know I - ”

“Dan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re my best friend too, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It’s then that he decides.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2014_ **

 

“Dan!” Zoe exclaims, flinging her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a quick squeeze. She smells like summer and fruits and girl; he tries not to sneeze into her hair. “Amy!” she says after, giving Amy a hug of her own. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

Despite Amy not being able to tell Zoe from Carrie and Alfie from Caspar, they all know her as Dan’s flatmate and best friend. Everyone calls out their hi’s and hello’s when Zoe guides them into the living room; there are about twenty people in there, lounging about on sofas and chairs and sipping actual chutes of what looks like champagne. The room is very prettily decorated, all soft lights and brown furniture. Dan finds himself wondering abstractly how much someone like Zoe must make per month.

Amy makes a little squeaky sound beside him when Zoe leads them into the kitchen, because Charlie is in there leaning against the fridge and talking to a bespectacled lad. “Oh, fuck,” Amy squeaks again, cowering into Dan’s side. “I didn't know he'd be here.”

“Charlie,” Dan says grandly, even though they've only talked once, at VidCon last year. “Have you met my friend Amy yet?”

He leaves a very badly flustered Amy to make conversation with Charlie, and accepts the chute of champagne Zoe hands him with a gracious smile. The spectacled guy that Charlie had been talking to when they’d arrived approaches him now, sticking his hand out and introducing himself smoothly as “Evan, Evan Edinger.” Dan smiles and tries not to show that the name doesn’t ring any bells at all.

“It’s okay,” Evan says, laughing. “I’m new here, nobody really knows me just yet.” Hm. Optimistic. Also, American. Dan speaks with Evan in the kitchen for a while, until a very loud whoop comes from the living room that peaks their interest, so the four of them leave the kitchen to find everyone else focused on the telly, where a very interesting game of FIFA is going down.

“Who’s playing?” Evan asks, leaning forward onto the sofa to get a good look at Zoe and Alfie on the controllers, sitting cross-legged on the rug in the middle. And at the same time, Phil sidles up to Dan and says, “Hullo, stranger.”

He almost drops his chute of champagne on his very expensive jeans. As it is, Dan manages to only jerk and not spontaneously combust. “Phil,” he says, calmly. “Hey. Fancy seeing you here.”

He’d only caught a glimpse of Phil for a half second earlier when Zoe had been leading them to the kitchen; he’d been leaning against the wall, looking tall as fuck all. He’s dressed like a proper London wanker, galaxy button-up over black skinnies and expensive looking boots, not very unlike Dan’s own, and he’d been laughing with Louise and Carrie and another small, mousy girl Evan said he lived with. What’s her name - Doddle? No, Dodie.

“Yeah,” Phil says. When he turns to look at Dan, his eyes are shining with amusement. “Fancy that.” He takes a sip of his champagne and then adds, “Didn’t reply to my text, so.”

“Oh.” Dan makes a face. “Sorry, it’s a bad habit.” He _had_ meant to reply, he’d even asked Amy to help him to compose the world’s calmest text message, except he’d gotten distracted before he could send it, convinced he was late for his very first shift at the BBC. A quick, harried call to Grimmy had confirmed he was to start next week. He wasn’t a very organised boss, that Nicholas Grimshaw.

Thinking of the BBC makes him think of his new job, and how much Phil doesn’t know about Dan anymore. He knocks back the rest of his drink and forces himself to focus on the FIFA. Phil evidently has other things on his mind. “Hey,” he says again, bumping their shoulders together. The contact is fleeting, but to Dan, it burns. “How have you been? Settled into London okay?”

He used to be Dan’s best friend. Besides the shitty grocery shop trip, he’d also imagine how he’d hug Phil when they met. Long, hard. He’d been convinced he’d never let go. Now they’re standing beside each other at Zoe’s mixer, and making small talk about London, and they haven’t even hugged yet.

“Good,” Dan replies, throat dry. “London’s great.”

Amy’s on the other side of the living room, sitting next to Charlie on the couch and saying something into his ear that’s got him red with laughter. She meets his eyes and gives him an encouraging smile, and all at once, Dan feels suffocated. He goes back into the kitchen to put his chute in the sink. Phil follows.

“And how was university in Manchester?” Phil asks. He’s standing by the fridge a bit awkwardly. Dan rinses his glass and looks around for a towel.

“It was good,” he says, distractedly. “I dropped out.”

“I know.”

Dan looks at him. So Phil’s been watching his videos, then. “I met Amy there, though,” he says after a moment. “We stay together now, she goes to King’s.”

“Oh.” The half-smile on Phil’s face doesn’t fall away, although it does turn a bit strained. “That’s - nice, Dan, I’m glad.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s not like that.” Amy’s gay, but that part is a secret. Also, what the fuck is with his face? He looks like Dan’s told him he’s moving to Australia, or something. That isn’t fair. Something big and difficult lodges itself in Dan’s throat. That isn’t _fair_.

“Oh,” Phil says, looking even more awkward. He sways on his feet a bit, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore, now that the conversation’s died down. In the living room, everyone lets out another collective whoop. Alfie seems to be winning. Dan wipes his glass and puts it away, and Phil’s still standing in the same place, except he’s looking at Dan now with a quiet sort of ferocity. “I kind of want to - ” he starts, and then falls silent.

“Go on,” Dan says, fingers going numb with nerves.

“I want to hug you? But I don’t know if that’s, like. Correct protocol.”

Dan laughs at that; he can’t help it. He’d been thinking the exact same thing. “Protocol,” he mocks, not unkindly, and makes a face at him, but Phil doesn’t laugh along. He’s still looking at Dan like he’s scared. Dan falls silent.

“We haven’t talked in ages,” Phil says quietly. “But I still feel like I know you. It doesn’t make any sense to me that I don’t.”

“I know,” Dan says before he can properly comprehend Phil’s words. He knows, though, because everything Phil feels, Dan feels too. It’s always been that way. Dan looks at the floor, scratching at a phantom itch behind his ear. “Maybe we should go back out.”

“Dan, can we - ”

“I’m tired, okay?” he says, cutting Phil off. “It’s been a long fucking day, and I feel a bit giddy from the wine, so can we just. Go back out? I don’t really want to talk right now.” He amazes himself with the number of lies he fits into two shorts sentences. He maybe deserves an award. Or, alternatively, a kick in the arse.

Phil doesn’t talk to him for the rest of his evening, staying on the other side of the living room with Carrie and Louise and Dodie. Evan keeps Dan company for the most part, and they make plans to record a reaction video sometime next week. He’s a nice lad, very excited about YouTube and all the opportunities that come with it. When Dan tells him about the new BBC gig, his eyes glaze over just the bit, and Dan has to laugh. But he can’t shake off the feeling that he’d rather be talking to someone else.

Louise and Jack leave first, followed by Troye Sivan who’d come two hours late fresh off a flight from Australia. The poor boy’s almost asleep on his feet. When Amy gets up and brushes off her dress, Dan starts saying his goodbyes. “I’m so glad you two could make it,” Zoe says again at the door, and Amy’s tipsy enough to squeeze her back when she goes in for another hug.

“Thanks for having us,” Dan says, hugging her too.

“I saw you and Phil connecting in the kitchen,” Zoe says into his shoulder. She pulls back to wiggle her eyebrows at him. “Don’t let the fans catch on, or they’ll cause pandemonium.” She pauses, and then cracks up laughing, wheezing out between breaths, “ _Phandemonium._ ”

“Okay,” Dan says, amused. “That’s enough now.”

Amy goes back in to return Zoe to Alfie, and when she pops back out, she links their arms together and leads them out of the apartment block. It’s a cool night outside, and there aren’t any cabs on the road, even though it’s only just turned midnight. “Let’s walk,” Amy mumbles, pulling him in the right direction.

It’s a cool sort of night, and Amy doesn’t ask him any questions about what Zoe had said, allowing them to walk in silence. They’re halfway home when Dan’s phone chimes with a new message, and Amy drunkenly insists he open it right now immediately. It’s a text from Phil.

“I don’t want to read it,” Dan slurs, handing his phone to Amy, who takes it upon herself to read it out instead.

“Hey Dan,” she starts, her voice low in a poor imitation of Phil’s. “It was nice catching up with you earlier, even if it was just for a bit. I’m sorry if I said something wrong, it’s just really weird to be around you again, especially in person.” She reads the next bit in her head first, and when she picks up again her voice is gone back to normal. “Do you want to get lunch with my next Saturday? Or dinner. I’d ask you for tomorrow but I’m going up to stay with my folks for a week. I hope you’re free, I’d love for us to talk.” She stops again. “Love, Phil.”

“Oh,” Dan says.

“Dan…”

“I don’t - ” He’s all but stopped walking, in the middle of the sidewalk, in the middle of the night. Amy slips her palm into his and squeezes, shuffling closer so he doesn’t feel very cold. He doesn’t know how, but Amy’s always very warm. “He said he feels like he still knows me,” he says, voice cracking. “And he said he wanted to hug me, but he didn’t know if it was allowed.”

She pulls him into a hug then, almost ferocious in its intensity. The few people still out and about give them a wide berth. Dan squeezes her back, desperately. “He doesn’t get to do this,” he says faintly into her hair. He doesn’t even know if she can hear him. “He doesn’t get to be away for so long, and then come back and still be able to ruin me. It isn’t _fair_.”

“You should go,” is all Amy says, stroking down his back once before pulling away. She pushes his phone back into his hands. “Text him now, tell him you’ll go. Next Saturday, and for dinner, because you’ve got Radio 1 in the afternoon.” She clicks her tongue impatiently when Dan just looks at her, dazed. “You say it isn’t fair, and that he’s come back, and he doesn’t get to make you feel this way anymore. But you’re the one who left. And if you two can’t be friends anymore, he at least deserves the little bit of closure you’ve got to offer. Even if you’ve got to confess your crush from all those years ago for that. You’re not eighteen anymore, Dan.”

He isn’t. Right now, though, he wishes he was. “You’re right,” he says finally, looking down at his phone. It’s burning a hole into his palm but he can’t run away from it now, not when Phil’s all but barged back into his life, planted himself down in an inconvenient corner and decided not to budge. He should be done running away from it by now. He’s not eighteen anymore. “You’re right,” he repeats.

Amy doesn’t flinch, but something in her eyes shines. He’s sure, if she thought for a moment he’d let her get away with it, she’d say _damn right I am._ He tousles her hair for it anyway, unbearably fond.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2009_ **

 

_(10:01) hey, are you there?  
(10:03) skype when you’re home?_

 

(10:37) dan, sorry, i just got back. is everything okay?  
(10:39) pick up the phone, love

 

_(11:01) ugh, first A level is tomorrow. mum’s making me sleep early, don’t think we can skype  
_ _(11:02) :(_

 

(11:03) god, already? i thought they dont start for another week, why didn’t you mention?  
(11:04) what’s your first one?

_(11:05) didnt want to talk about it . too scared  
_ _(11:05) Psych_

(11:06) scared of what, love?  
(11:07) you’re going to do well, dan. i know it :)

 

 _(11:07) scared i wont do well enough to go to uni somewhere good_  

(11:08) where have you applied?

 

_(11:09) King’s, LSE, and a local one  
_ _(11:10) and uni of manch_

(11:11) oh. you didnt tell me 

 

_(11:11) thought maybe you  
_ _(11:12) wouldnt want to know_

(11:12) dont be silly

_(11:12) because like_  
_(11:13) maybe you dont want me there? and i  
_ _(11:13) yeah, haha. the things that i think about ._

(11:14) do you really think i dont want you here?

_(11:15) dont know, do i_

(11:15) i tell you all the time, can’t you guess? 

 

_(11:16) people change their minds, it happens all the time  
_ _(11:16) like for example i used to think i was straight, and yet_

(11:19) and yet?

_(11:20) well, you know. it happens_

(11:20) what happens? you’re tlaking in circles  
(11:21) talking  
(11:22) anyway, i’m not going to change my mind about you.  
(11:22) that’s, like, one thing i’m super sure about

_(11:23) super sure?_

(11:24) yeah, shut up. you dont get to tease

_(11:24) why not?_

(11:25) “it happens”

_(11:25) so i’ve crushed on a few boys, alright?_

(11:26) s’that all? never done anything more, like? 

_(11:26) no, god. it’s a small town, everyone would know in a jiffy_

(11:27) you’ve thought about it, then?

_(11:27) are you trying to sext me?  
_ _(11:31) ive thought about it_

(11:32) what have you thought about?

_(11:32) blowing someone  
_ _(11:33) have you done that, then?_

(11:34) gotten a blowie, or given one?

_(11:35) both?_

(11:35) done both, but i prefer getting one

_(11:36) lazy sod_

(11:36) which one would you prefer?

_(11:37) dont know. want to know what its like to give one_

(11:39) oh  
(11:40) plenty of time for that in uni, then  
(11:40) what else have you thought about?

_(11:41) getting fucked_

(11:42) wow

_(11:42) what? you asked_

(11:43) and you’re sure? 

_(11:44) dont know? seems nice enough when i do it on myself_  

(11:44) christ, dan

_(11:45) it feels good, like_

(11:45) are you doing it now?

_(11:47) no  
_ _(11:47) but i want to_

(11:48) go on, then

_(11:50) are you giving me your permission?_

(11: 51) not unless you’re into that

_(11:51) okay_

(11:52) have you got stuff? 

_(11:52) yeah_

(11:53) start slow

_(11:54) i know_  
_(11:57) are you_  
_(11:57) like  
_ _(11:58) getting off on this?_

(11:59) yeah

_(12:03) fuck, okay_

(12:04) does it feel good?

_(12:04) same as always_

(12:05) tell me when you  
(12:05) hit that spot 

_(12:06) yeah  
_ _(12:12) fuck, im_

(12:13) did you ?  
(12:14) this is really fucking hot

_(12:15) i’m not done yet  
_ _(12:15) typing is hard_

(12:16) im so hard 

_(12:17) me too_  
_(12:18) fuck  
_ _(12:18) can i come?_

(12:21) are you asking for my permission, dan?

_(12:22) not if youre going to be a fukcing wanker about it_

(12:23) i was teasing  
(12:24) yes  
(12:24) you can

(12:35) hullo?

_(12:35) right  
_ _(12:36) what the fuck was that_

(12:37) haha! thought you slept  
(12:38) it’s because you were scared about tomorrow  
(12:38) thought id help you relax

_(12:39) there were other ways to help me relax  
_ _(12:40) jesus fuck, phil_

(12:41) wait, are you properly pissed?

_(12:42) not really  
_ _(12:43) it was really fucking good_

(12:44) i know  
(12:44) i’m sorry  
(12:45) iw ouldve stopped if you asked me to 

_(12:46) i didnt want to stop_

(12:47) me neither

_(12:56) i havent got any sense of self preservation, is the thing  
_ _(12:57) ive got to sleep now it’s so fucking late_

(12: 57) okay  
(12: 58) goodnight, you

_(12:58) gnight, phil :)_

(12:58) you’ll do well tomorrow, i’m sure of it  
(12:58) love you

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_2014_ **

 

Dan keeps himself busy during the week. He goes out grocery shopping to fill in the fridge, buys two oyster cards for him and Amy, vacuums the rugs in the living room. Meets with their landlady about the pets policy (they’re allowed a puppy between the two of them long as it doesn’t bark at ungodly hours).

He records a video about getting the BBC gig and makes the thumbnail a badly photoshopped picture of Grimmy on a crying baby. Predictably, two hours after he uploads it, Grimmy calls him up to complain. He tries to pull the I’m-your-boss card on him, which technically _should_ work, because he’s thirty and Dan’s just an intern. But Grimmy’s already becoming the kind of boss who invites you to parties and takes you to Majorca for weekends, and Dan can’t find it in himself to be properly scared of him just yet. Ben Winston, maybe. But not Grimmy.

He goes in to the BBC on Saturday, two hours before his shift begins, to hang out with Pixie and LMC and learn the ropes. Pixie is a bit intimidating at first and makes a big deal of refusing to talk to him because he hadn’t brought her a coffee. LMC is friendlier, getting him a chair to sit on close enough to the sound controls so it looks like he’s doing something important. Then she fills him in on the guests they’ve had this week, and what today’s afternoon hour is going to be like. Grimmy’s on today, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

The man of the hour breezes in two minutes before they’re set to start, throwing apologies left and right and a coffee cup onto Pixie’s cluttered table. It skids across the polished wood, and she just about catches it before it can plummet to the ground. She kisses Grimmy’s cheek and looks pointedly at Dan over his shoulder, but there’s something like amusement in her eyes.

“You look terrible,” is how Grimmy greets him, before he’s pushing him into the station and shutting the door behind them. “That’s your seat, here’s your headset, don’t say anything stupid or even mildly offensive and don’t bring up celebrity gossip unless I do it first. And we aren’t allowed to talk about the queen. Also, don’t swear. This is a family station.”

Dan sits down and nods, tries not to be too intimidated. From the other side of the window, LMC throws him an encouraging thumbs up. He still doesn’t know what the initials stand for, but he’s gotten used to thinking of her that way. It’s the strangest thing. “Ready?” Grimmy asks him, and then counts down “Three, two, one,” before Dan can respond. From another station, he can hear Ben segueing them in. Then they’re on the air.

Grimmy introduces him as “Danisnotonfire from YouTube” and Dan tries not to stutter when he throws in his hallo. He doesn’t say much during the first half hour, just introduces a couple of songs when Grimmy prompts him to. He’s just segued in Happy by Pharell and is reading the tweets that are pouring in, when the door to the room outside swings open, and Niall fucking Horan walks in. Dan tries not to choke on his spit, but it’s a feat.

He’s still a bit breathless when the song is over, because Niall’s talking to LMC on the other side of the window, and she says something that makes him look up and straight at Dan. He nods and mouths something that looks like, “All right, mate?” Dan tries not to flail. Grimmy takes over for a while, motioning for Dan to go out and say hi if he wants. He does.

“All right?” Niall Horan says in person, reaching for Dan’s hand and giving it a thorough shake. “Dan, isn’t it?”

“That’s me,” Dan says. “And you’re Niall Horan. From One Direction.” Behind Niall, he can see Pixie bury her head in her hands. LMC doesn’t laugh, but she does look a bit red.

“That’s me,” Niall Horan says, shaking his hand one last time before letting it go. “You sound ace in there, mate, rockin’ it. First time?”

“Yeah,” Dan says fervently. “Thank you.” He still cannot believe this is real life. His blood is rushing in his ears; Amy’s going to _piss_ herself when she finds out.

“Just popped by to give something to Grimmy,” Niall tells him, like they’re old mates sharing stories. “Styles picked up a few things for him when we were in Australia, you know how he is.”

“Oh, yes,” Dan says eagerly. He doesn’t know, but he’s willing to pretend he does, for Niall Horan.

“Alright then,” Niall smiles again. “I’ll be going. You have fun in there, yeah? Take care, and all.” He tips his snapback to LMC and Pixie, both of whom blush a pretty red and tease him out of the door. Then Dan goes back into the station and sits down. When he reaches for his headset, his hand shakes, and Grimmy starts laughing in the middle of his sentence.

“Our mate Dan’s had a bit of a run-in with a star, hasn’t he?” he says into the microphone.

“Grimmy’s only teasing because nobody comes by to see him anymore,” Dan says, recovering smoothly. “How’s it feel to be so old, Grimmers? Have the bones begun to creak?”

“You’ll hand in your resignation by the end of the day,” Grimmy says good-naturedly. “Next on we’ve got Rude, by Magic exclamation mark. D’you think Panic could claim copyright and sue, Dan?”

Dan doesn’t get a chance to reply, because Grimmy puts the track on and leans away from the table. “We’re done,” he tells him, grinning easily. “You were good today.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, beaming. He can’t seem to knock the smile off his face, even after he hugs LMC goodbye and promises Pixie he’ll bring in her coffee next Saturday. She makes him repeat her order three times, and then puts it into his notes app so he doesn’t forget, and even when she rolls her eyes at him when he says bye, the grin doesn’t fall off. Grimmy flips him off when he tries to go in for a hug. It’s the best fucking day.

He almost forgets about his dinner with Phil, until he’s halfway home and his phone pings with a message. He reads it before checking who sent it, and immediately, his belly swoops.

_Hey, we’re still on for today? I made us reservations at the fish place on 6th ave :) see you there around seven? keep yourself hungry x_

He’s still staring at the message, coaxing himself to keep walking because he’s stopped in his tracks in the middle of the sidewalk again, when the screen of his phone changes into an incoming call. It’s Amy.

“Hi,” she says, sounding breathless, when he picks up. “You were great. You sounded _great_.”

“Really?” asks Dan, smiling again as he resumes walking. He hadn’t thought she’d be listening; she’s in the uni library again, dropping off old books and looking for new ones.

“Yeah. Who came in halfway?”

“Niall Horan, can you believe it?”

“No _fucking_ way.”

“I know.” He loves Amy, because she’s nice and neat and has always wanted to study Law, and she’s Catholic and is a vegetarian on Tuesdays and Fridays, but despite it all, she’s the biggest One Direction fan he knows.

“I can’t wait to fucking _murder_ you.”

“I know.” Dan grins wider, shaking his head. “Where are you?” She’s being far too loud to be in the library still.

“Walking back now. What time are you meeting Phil?”

Straight to the point, as always. “He just texted me, said we’ve got reservations at seven.”

“Not a lot of time, then,” she notes. And then: “Ooh, _reservations_.”

“Shut up,” Dan says. “It’s just because it’s a Saturday.”

“I know,” Amy says. She manages to make the one word sound cheeky as anything. “I’ll see you back home?”

“See you.”

Amy gets back at half past five and immediately asks him if he’s got an outfit planned. “Not that I care,” she insists, “But I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” Dan lets her steer him into his room and fling his wardrobe around to root around for a clean shirt, mostly because she’s a bit scary when she gets like this, but also because he kind of wants to look nice. Despite being terrified out of his wits about meeting with Phil later.

They decide on a black t-shirt with the words _not as think as you drunk i am_ on it, over skinny jeans and his expensive boots. He’d have chosen the ensemble himself, but the pleased look Amy gets on her face when he changes into it feels somehow settling. He can’t be doing too badly in life if Amy’s proud of him.

By the time he’s done getting dressed and has rubbed on enough cologne to ensure he doesn’t smell but also not make him across as a vain prick, it’s a quarter to seven. Amy pushes him out the door with a quick good luck wish and a kiss on the cheek, and then he’s running out and hailing down a taxi. He gets to the restaurant with three minutes to spare, and Phil’s already sitting at a table in the back.

“Hi,” Phil says when he sees Dan approaching, managing to make the one word bleed with warmth. He stands up and pulls out Dan’s chair for him, and Dan has to clench his fists to keep from floating away, to an alternate universe where Phil and he are best friends who’ve decided to give dating a shot. “I was afraid you wouldn’t show,” Phil confesses, once he’s seated as well.

He’s got a casual sort of shirt on, blue with black stars. He’d worn it to a premiere last year; Dan remembers seeing the pictures on Tumblr, and wondering at how Phil still managed to look attractive in that stupid shirt. This close, he can see how the blue brings out his eyes. It’s almost unnerving. “Said I would, didn’t I?” Dan asks, affecting a laugh. It comes out on the wrong side of strained.

Phil’s looking down and away, and the awkwardness falls onto them like a blanket. “Have you been here before?” Phil asks, stilted.

“Once.” The first week Amy and he had moved to London, she’d been craving a good pasta and Google recommended this place. They’d almost busted a nerve when they’d looked at the bill, swearing up and down that they’d never come back, but not loud enough for the waiters to hear. He finds himself telling Phil about it.

When Phil laughs, Dan has to look away. He just looks so _good_ is the problem, clean shaven, soft. Everything about him - his face, his timbre, the crinkles by his eyes when he smiles - is painfully familiar.

“Sirs,” a waiter says, appearing at their table out of nowhere. “Are you ready to order?”

Phil asks for a clam chowder and Dan gets a mushroom fettuccine, and they decide to split a beef lasagna between the two of them because it’s on offer. “Champagne?” Phil asks him, eyes sparkling, and Dan goes a bit weak in the knees. It’s a good thing he’s sitting down.

Despite them getting off to a bit of an awkward start, the conversation comes easy after that. Turns out Phil hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he wanted to catch up; he insists that Dan tell him everything, from how the last of his A Levels had gone, to how Manchester treated him for the two years he spent there. “I went on the Eye with Amy,” Dan tells him, once the champagne has mixed with his blood, warm and disabling. If the news affects Phil, he doesn’t show it.

“How’s YouTube going for you?” Dan asks once they’ve placed their dessert orders. It’s a stupid question, because they both know Dan’s kept up with Phil’s career over the years.

Phil humours him. “Quite well,” he says, modestly. “I’ve been looking into other things to do on the side, like an app, or a book. But the videos are still going to be my main thing.”

“That’s nice,” Dan says. Nods. “Have I told you about my thing with the BBC?”

Phil’s eyes go wide. “That was you on the radio today, wasn’t it?” He sounds so excited that Dan shifts in his seat, uncomfortable with the attention. “You were great, Dan, really. Have you only got an hour every Saturday? They should give you more.” He stops, seemingly catching himself. “I’m really happy for you,” he adds at the end, softly.

“Thank you.” Dan has to look away, reaching for his champagne only to find the chute empty. All of a sudden, he wants to be anywhere but here.

“You’ve done so well over the years,” Phil continues. “I knew YouTube would hit off for you, but, the other stuff? You’re really good at it. You’re a natural.” His voice is too soft, too near. Too honest. “I’m glad it all worked out in the end.”

It sounds strangely, scarily final. Like this is it. Dan blinks, desperation rising in him like hot air, painful and all-encompassing. Why does it sound so final?

They’re silent through most of dessert. Dan’s almost done with his pineapple ice cream when he finally plucks up the nerve to say, into the silence, “I’ve really fucking missed you.” Across the table, Phil goes completely rigid, fork pausing halfway to his mouth. Dan watches him put it back down. He looks like he might say something, so Dan continues swiftly. “Like, for the longest time, it felt almost inevitable that we’d start talking again. I didn’t really know what to do with myself once I realised you were gone.”

“ _I_ was gone,” Phil says now, voice uncharacteristically low. He’s leaning forward, eyes on Dan, every inch of his face intense with emotion. “ _You_ pushed me away, Dan. You didn’t even give me a proper reason - ”

“I _told_ you - ”

“That you were scared?” Dan’s never seen Phil this angry, but it looks exactly like Dan had imagined it would. The anger in Phil is contained, almost calm. It bleeds out from him in buckets but doesn’t make a mess. He’s the epitome of put together, even when he’s coming apart at the seams. “What kind of reason is that?”

“I was eighteen,” Dan hears himself say. The words fall out of him without his permission; all he can do is stand by and watch. “I loved you, okay? Like, fuck. I was so in love with you, and I’d only known you, what, half a year by then? I wanted to go to university in Manchester and stay with you. I wanted to do the fucking grocery shopping with you, God. You were all I could think about sometimes.” _It was too real_ , is what he doesn’t say. _It had never felt that real before. I was terrified I wouldn’t know how to live once you told me you didn’t want me back._

“Friends fall in love with each other all the time,” Phil says. His voice shakes on the last word, and he’s not looking at Dan anymore.

Dan can barely hear the soft hum of the restaurant surrounding them. It feels like he’s given in and finally floated away. “I shouldn’t have,” he says, bitterly. “Fucking ruined me, didn’t it?” 

Phil looks up at that, eyes shining. “Dan, I’m - ”

“I didn’t know what I wanted back then.” His fingers tremble of their own accord, and he curls them into a fist. “Sometimes I think maybe I still don’t, but the bottom line is that you were my best friend. You knew me better than I knew myself. When I told you we had to stop being friends, you didn’t have to.” He clears his throat. “You didn’t have to listen.”

“Dan - ”

“And you didn’t have to leave so soon, and make it feel like you took something with you.” _Like I was less than who I was when I met you_ , he doesn’t say. _Like you took away all the good parts of me when you left._

Phil’s reaching across the table, curling his hand around Dan’s closed fist and squeezing once, twice. “Hey,” he’s saying, soft as ever. “Please don’t cry. I didn’t know any better then, alright? I just wanted to do what would make you happy. What I thought would make you happy.”

Dan isn’t crying. He _isn’t._

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

His palm burns around Dan’s, warm and soft like he always knew Phil would feel. Under the table, their ankles bump together. It doesn’t feel like a final sort of bump. Dan looks down at his melting ice cream, and focuses on not letting any tears spill.

Phil asks for the bill and doesn’t let Dan see it, insisting he’s got it covered. It does nothing to alleviate Dan’s panic, only serves to drive it home. His fingers tremble when he reaches for his glass and takes a sip of water. Then they’re done with dinner, and it’s dark outside.

“Are you taking a taxi back?” Phil asks him once they’ve left the restaurant.

“Yeah,” Dan says, keeping his eyes on the road until his vision sorts itself out and stops being so blurry. Someone brushes by him, jostling him enough to move him closer to Phil. He doesn’t have to look at Phil to know he’s already looking at him. “Cold night out today.”

“Quite cold,” Phil agrees. And then: “Do you want to come back to mine for tea?”

It’s already dark, but it gets even darker on the taxi ride to Phil’s. They’re sat on opposite ends of the backseat, both of them looking out of the window, away from each other. The air feels thick with the possibility of. Something. Dan wants to cry from the anticipation of it.

“It’s a bit of a tip,” Phil apologises, when he unlocks the front door of his flat. It’s nice and spacious and isn’t messy at all, and there’s proper furniture in the lounge. But Dan doesn’t get to have a proper look around because in an instant, Phil’s surrounding him, smelling of berries and summer and boy. Dan buries his face in Phil’s shoulder and tries not to breathe in too obviously.

It feels just like he knew hugging Phil would feel. Phil’s older now, closer to being thirty than he is to being twenty, but he fits against Dan like an odd-shaped puzzle piece. He’s two inches shorter but his arms are sturdy around Dan’s shoulders, and it still feels like he’s the one being hugged, instead of the other way round. Dan squeezes him closer, keeps his eyes shut, scared if he opens them all the good things will dissolve and he’ll be eighteen again, alone and sad.

“Sometimes,” Phil says. “Sometimes I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe from it.”

All the thoughts leave Dan’s head in a faint _whoosh_.

“Like, you, you were so amazing. _Are_ so amazing. It felt like I could talk to you about anything.” Phil’s voice shakes the slightest bit, but he’s still hugging Dan so he can’t tell if Phil’s okay. All he can do is listen. “And I was so honest with you, always have been. I’ve never been very good at having real, honest friendships but you made me want to try. It was scary, and then it was just. Easy. I loved the fuck out of you and it was the easiest thing in the world.”

Dan doesn’t know what to say. All he can do is grip Phil tighter, hold him as close as he can, in the dim light of his living room.

“And I felt all the time that you’d get tired of me, and we’d have a falling out before we could even meet, and. And when you said we couldn’t be friends anymore, I thought that was it.” Phil laughs, and it sounds painfully watery. “You sort of proved all my fears correct.”

“No,” Dan finds himself saying, even if that’s exactly what had happened, isn’t it? He says, “I’m so sorry.” And once he’s started, he can’t stop. “I’m sorry, Phil, I’m so sorry.” The past five years, thinking pushing Phil away would help him get over the blue-eyed boy, who’d stolen his heart after the very first late night conversation. Two of them on separate beds, impossibly close nevertheless.

Dan pulls away and rubs at his eyes, because it’s been five years but having Phil here, in person, has only made him realise he’s still in love with him. He’s never stopped. He doesn’t know if he _can_.

Phil’s kissing him before he can understand what’s happening. His lips are so warm they’re almost burning, pressing into Dan’s own gently, insistently. Phil’s breath come in short puffs against the tip of Dan’s nose, and he’s pulling him closer with his hands around Dan’s neck, and Dan suddenly understands what Phil meant by it being the easiest thing in the world. It feels like that when he kisses Phil back. Like he couldn’t possibly do anything else.

It’s nothing like he imagined, but everything he wants it to be. Phil is quietly desperate, pulling him in by his hair and his waist and once, confusingly, his ears. He makes the softest sound when Dan bites down his lip, and then it gets impossibly hotter and wetter, both of them pressed so close together Dan doesn’t think he’ll be able to breathe, even if he were to stop. Not that he plans to do any of that soon.

“Please don’t go,” Phil says against his lips, after they’ve been kissing for what feels like hours in his dark living room, only a foot from the front door. “Please don’t leave me again.”

“Never,” Dan promises into his mouth. “Never, never.”

Except he’s got to pull away barely a minute after that, because his phone’s ringing in his pocket, blaring Beyonce’s Partition into their safe bubble. Dan laughs and digs it out of his jeans, while Phil buries his head in Dan’s neck and whines, “Turn it _off_.”

“It’s Amy,” Dan tells him, almost apologetically. “I’ve got to take it, she must be worried.”

Phil goes into the kitchen reluctantly to make them both a cup of tea, turning the lights in the living room on along the way. It’s a very nice room, comfortably furnished and just messy enough to look lived in. There’s nothing even remotely tippy about it. Dan perches at the edge of an L-shaped sofa and answers the phone.

“Dan,” Amy says, breathless as always. “Where _are_ you? Is everything alright?”

Dan has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “Everything’s great,” he tells Amy. “I promise. I’m at Phil’s. We came back for tea.”

“ _Right_ ,” Amy says, like she knows exactly what they’ve been doing instead.

“Well.” Dan lets himself laugh now, when it doesn’t sound like Amy’s going to blow up London in a panic. “You asked.”

“So it’s okay, then?” She sounds cautious. “Are you two all caught up?”

“Quite caught up.” He’s trying very hard not to chuckle again. He doesn’t think Amy would appreciate it.

“ _Ugh_ ,” she says. And then: “Is he still the same? You know, like he was five years ago?”

Dan doesn’t have to think about it. Phil comes out of the kitchen then, with a plate of biscuits in one hand and two cups of tea held precariously in the other. He puts all three items down on the coffee table and sits besides Dan, kissing him softly at his neck.

“Yeah,” Dan says into the phone, heart racing but head calm, for the first time in what feels like forever. “It’s like nothing’s changed at all.”

 

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> loved it? hated it? don't hesitate to tell me what you think! also, [tumblr](http://oopsiwritefanficdonttellmum.tumblr.com)


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